Probably the most egregious portion of it came from Savannah Guthrie, in which she characterizes the co-lighting of the Olympic flame by Dinigeer Yilamujiang, a cross-country skier selected from the Uyghur population as "an in-your-face response to those Western nations, including the U.S., who have called this Chinese treatment of that group genocide and diplomatically boycotted those games."
But Andrew Browne's remarks were pretty rancid as well:
An NBC commentator offered what sounded like a defense of the Chinese Communist regime during the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday.
“It’s worth remembering that while Western countries may be boycotting these Olympics over human rights issues, China styles itself as a champion of the developing world, and it has plenty of support in countries from Africa to Latin America where its investments are building up local economies,” said former Wall Street Journal senior correspondent and columnist Andrew Browne, referring to China’s Belt and Road initiative.
Is this just a matter of a giddy response to the pageantry of the moment? Or were they keen to avoid the humiliation of being dragged by Chinese authorities away from giving a report like Dutch journalist Sjoerd den Haas?
In any event, this is the kind of awkwardness that results from participating in a Potemkin village-style dog and pony show by one of the world's cruelest and most ambitiously expansionist regimes on Earth.
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